Elizabeth Shove’s recent paper ‘What is wrong with energy efficiency’ (Shove, 2017) set out three key challenges to energy policy researchers (and others) – to take stock, to reflect on the consequences of our work, and ‘to develop strategies and solutions that challenge rather than reproduce increasingly problematic assumptions about present and future ways of life’. Here, we respond to the first two challenges to present a positive and nuanced account of the role of energy efficiency, based on experience in the UK and EU. We question the assumption underlying the third challenge, that current levels of energy services are incompatible with a low carbon future.

The aim of this response is to add to a constructive debate on energy efficiency, its role to date, and its place in the low carbon transition.